Release date: August 20th, 3 PM CEST | 6AM PT

Improvements and Changes

Please have a look at this blog post for some more details on features like photo mode and heroic specialists.

New Features & Functionalities

• Added a Photo Mode to the game
  • Includes a free camera and various effects
• Added a Note Function
  • Allows taking notes and dropping them in the game world, as well as setting timers to get reminders
• Honoured Guests & Heroic Specialists
  • Honoured guests now visit the player based on their Prestige and new heroic specialists get introduced
• Replace mode: demolish everything below the currently selected building to quickly make space for larger objects
• Production Buildings now have a shortcut to the statistics screen included in their menu
• The Hall of Fame is expanded with a new page that includes past Twitch Drops
• Players on PC now can quit the game without going back to the main menu first
• Added additional modifiable hotkeys for mouse & keyboard
  • These are unassigned by default, check the control settings to set them up, e.g. to open the province map, the quest log, to encamp units, unload ships, …
• Added Steam Community Rewards (Trading Cards)
• [Mods] Added a simple pop-up to warn about players using different mod setups in multiplayer
• [Mods] Added infotip to Lua Console to explain shortcuts
• Time limited Challenges are now available on all platforms via Ubisoft Connect

Changes

• Added a mod incompatibility warning
  • In case of differing mod versions or some players using mods while others don’t, a multiplayer match cannot be started
• Monument events can now be set to automatically repeat (Amphitheatre and Hippodrome)
• Trade Route goods filters now stay active after opening and closing a route
• Players can now jump to a ship in the trade routes screen with CTRL + click
• Added the option to duplicate trade routes
• Buildings, ornaments, etc. now specify which DLC or Cosmetic Pack they’re part of
• Added an option to switch between street configuration directly in the street build mode panel
• Added an option to toggle between regular grid as well as brush mode for e.g. fields and forests in the build mode panel
• The construction menu now supports wider sizes for larger number of ornaments, as well as the option to break ornaments into two lines. This is to avoid players having to scroll horizontally

Balancing

• The buffs of the Amphitheatre have been reworked for increase clarity
  • Note especially the splendour level adding bread as a need for Liberti, as this will impact bread consumption
  • Be aware that you can toggle the consumption of goods in the residence object menu
• Monument effects are now valid island-wide
• Bread consumption has been increased across the board by about 50%
  • To compensate, bread as a need now provides +3 population instead of +2
  • Water Mills now produce flour faster, 20sec instead of 30sec
• Major Incidents are now more impactful, affecting significantly more buildings
• Significantly reduced the values of diplomatic gifts
  • Underused feature since costs too high for player, while gifts from rivals also too high
• Reduced the frequency of all types of festivals
• Vulcan’s buffs now affect both gold/coal mine as well as gold washer and charcoal burner
• Mars’ buffs now affect both the coal mine as well as the charcoal burner

Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed an issue where cheat items could “spread” to other players in co-op
  • This is fixed as part of the “can’t start multiplayer with differing mod setups” change mentioned under “Improvements & Changes”
• Fixed an issue with the emperor remaining in the province with his fleet
• Fixed an issue in the campaign where pre-built buildings on the starting island would result in working dropping when “inactive upkeep” was set to “full”
• Fixed a crash related t adding new rivals mid-game
• Fixed an issue where under certain conditions players couldn’t choose the other upgrade path after reaching Tier 3 of the first path chosen
• Farms and Plantations now have field workers
• Fixed an issue where the highest Difficulty Rating was not possible to set up
• Fixed an issue with building repair costs not scaling with the completed repair percentage
• Fixed an issue where garrison units from the villa could also be deployed while the villa was in ruins
• Fixed an issue where the theatre in Albion would provide Nobles as population and workforce when buffed
• Fixed a “ship full” notification when trying to move a military unit next to an encamped military unit
• Fixed an issue with rival garrison units not disappearing after the war
• Fixed a ship pathing behaviour issue with the emperor’s fleet
• Fixed the issue of Cinis not returning to neutral colour on minimap and province map after it was razed by the emperor
• Fixed an issue with rival islands remaining vassalized by the emperor even after the rebellion ended
• Fixed an issue with rivals attacking the ships for sale at the harbour of raiders
• Fixed an issue with festivals staying active after taking over the island of a rival
• Fixed an issue with the war triumph festival buffs not applying correctly
• Fixed an issue with collectibles (e.g. obsidian from volcanic rocks) occasionally not transferring the resources into the storage
• Fixed an issue where the rival colours weren’t updated when the player changed their own colour mid-game, and where rivals were given the same colour as the player
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from changing the consumption difficulty setting mid-game
• Fixed an issue where the monitor refresh rate wasn’t reverted to the old value when refusing a resolution change that would have also changed the refresh rate
• Fixed an issue when the camera is following a ship on max game speed
• Fixed an issue with how Ubisoft Connect counts playtime
• Voada’s units now also destroy ornamental walls
• Improved the wind behaviour. Same wind, more consistent behaviour across systems
• Fixed an issue that resulted in major incidents being impossible to resolve in Albion

Controls

• Improved Cistern and Aqueduct Source selection with gamepad when zoomed out
• Improved quick menu behaviour with gamepad
• General improvements and fixes to gamepad controls

Multiplayer

• Fixed an issue where the “Empty Coffers” quest to set up a trade route was not completed by setting up a route with a human rival
• It’s not possible anymore to accept invites while in the loading screen
• Fixed an issue where custom ship presets were not saved when leaving and rejoining a session
• Fixed the host being able to activate a DLC without other participants owning it, which would result in a game freeze and desync
• Fixed two TRAJAN errors in co-op mode related to enabling the “persistent coop/live” mode
• Fixed an issue where the fog of war was present for a player who joined an ongoing session in place of a defeated rival
• Further smaller multiplayer improvements

World/Level Art

• Fixed an issue with Latium island fertility being present on an Albion island
  • Please note this fix only applies to new savegames. Fertilities cannot be changed in existing saves.
  • Fixed a faulty mining slot on the Latium island “island extra large 02”

Diplomacy/Rivals

• Concordia now correctly has a positive reaction to the player stopping the supply of beer, oysters and bird tongues
• Fixed an issue with war warnings for rivals not triggering correctly under certain circumstances
• Fixed an issue where a loan offer message was displayed instead of a loan request
• If a settlement request by a rival times out, it is now automatically approved instead of denied
• Fixed an issue with Athr settling islands in Latium and Dorian settling islands in Albion
  • Please note: both are allowed to capture islands in the respective other province during a war but they’re not allowed to settle free islands there
• Fixed an issue with the emperor-reputation gain of rivals after the ruling emperor changes
• Fixed an issue that let the player both join other rivals in their rebellion and also support the emperor
• Fixed an issue where the rival’s specialist version got destroyed if the player didn’t have an island inventory at the time
• Fixed an exploit where it was possible to add new rivals while the game was paused and make them accept any type of treaty
• Passive trade will now correctly recognize trade embargoes
• Rivals no longer talk to raiders not present in the game. They live on in our hearts.

Building

• Fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to place a gate in the middle tile between two walls
• Fixed an issue where modules were not placed together with the main building in blueprint mode when the player didn’t have enough resources
• Fixed an issue with the upgrade tool not repairing damaged hedges and walls
• Fixed an issue where 6 sheep folds were shown in the preview mode when a farm was built in diagonal mode

Fixed an issue that prevented players from building hedges in swamps

Audio

• Fixed missing sound effect when placing walls and hedges
• Added some sound effects to the Amphitheatre menu when games are active
• Added missing sound effects to various button and menu interactions

UI/UX

• Fixed an issue with the land construction grid disappearing after placing any coastal building
• Fixed an issue where the Trade Pier goods overview didn’t have filters
• Fixed an issue where goods couldn’t be removed but only replaced in the Trade Pier
• Fixed an issue where the infotip for a good in the trade route menu could block it from being selected with the mouse.
• Fixed an issue which caused trade route menu filters to not function properly
• Improved visibility of passive trade icons on the goods screen
• Fixed issues with the highlighting of progression milestones in the Religion menu
• Improved scroll behaviour in the diplomacy negotiation screen
• Fixed an issue with unit health bars playing an “filling up” animation when zooming in and out next to the unit
• Fixed an issue with the drainage building not displaying the amount of connected canals
• Fixed various issues with the quest log, e.g. missing province information, scaling problems, localization issues and problems when using a gamepad
• Fixed missing “randomise seed” button in the custom difficulty window
• Fixed an issue with the scrollbar in the residence menu occasionally couldn’t be dragged to scroll
• Fixed rounding behaviour for the global population count in the top bar
• Fixed various misalignments, icon sizes and text box behaviour across all languages

Art/Visuals

• Fixed an issue with grass being visible through roads around the Gambling House
• Fixed an issue with character portraits looking blurry on Intel cards
• Fixed an issue where the temple looked like a blueprint on maximum zoom distance
• Improved visibility of plague groups during plagues (and made them look less like zombies…)
• Removed a beautifully pink “failure” cube in Caeso’s harbour
• Fixed a fountain on Diana’s island that was clipping into the ground
• Fixed the behaviour of feedback units on various buildings, and added missing feedback units to various places
  • Bath house and forum now have feedback units again
• Fixed missing textures on shipwrecks in the “Scars of Conquest” quest
• Fixed a submerged statue near Cinis that was not, in fact, submerged
• Fixed an issue with the water texture disappearing near Cinis under certain conditions
• Fixed an issue that led to trees occasionally displaying a magical glow effect
• Smaller buildings and ornaments don’t fade out anymore when the camera gets too close
• The selection outlines of the Sacellum und Lyceum on Cinis now match the building dimensions
• Fixed LOD (level of detail) issue with wheat fields on high zoom levels
• Fixed an issue where an opponent’s logo was present on the player’s villa flag

Quests

• Fixed an issue for the “Share a Drink” quest where the item could not be delivered
• Fixed an issue where the reward ship for “Missing Cargo” was assigned to the wrong player
• Fixed a quest configuration issue for ship delivery emperor requests which didn’t correctly award reputation
• Fixed an issue with the active effect from the “The Price of Order “incident quest never expired
• Fixed an issue with the emperor asking for invalid ship configurations
• Quest objects cannot spawn in provinces anymore the player hasn’t entered
• Fixed missing text in the quest book archive for the “Potion Seller” quest
• Fixed missing tunic rewards for the “Burning Fever” quest
• Fixed the spawn locations of the bonfire in the “Iron and Fire Festival” quest
• Added missing objective to quest tracker for the “The Horse’s Gift” decision in the “Spurring the Moment” quest.
• Removed the waiting time for the “Scars of Conquest” quest after giving the dagger to Voada
• Fixed Libertus instead of Equites messages appearing in the “Mare Infestum” quest
• Fixed the “Cutting the Chain” governor decision triggering while the raider is inactive
• Fixed an issue with the quest feedback units being invisible during “Mare Infestum”
• Fixed the quest marker for “Veni, Vidi, Bibi” being present on all aqueduct sources on all islands
• Fixed the reappearing “the item was moved to” notification during the “Fugitive Family” quest
• Fixed an issue that led to quest items not being collectable from the ocean after they were thrown overboard automatically when delivering a ship with said quest items onboard during a ship delivery quest
• Fixed issues that led to the “Begin Celebration” objective failing to progress after the targeted cistern was destroyed and the quest overall failing when cisterns were destroyed
• Fixed the reward ship of the “The Honourable Course” quest moving towards the edge of the map and disappearing
• It’s no longer possible to destroy the target ship in the “Pieces of Resistance” quest
  • This fix does not apply if the ship has already been destroyed
• Fixed a missing pop-up confirmation before starting the escort during “Convoy of the Condemned”
• Fixed an issue where the “Empty Coffers” quest would suggest setting up trade treaties with rivals even if none were present
• Fixed a missing objective and a talking heads scene between Julia and Lucuius after building Grammaticus or Sanctuary
• Fixed a misleading counter for the “Shield of Albion” achievement
• Fixed the timer for the “Not Built In A Day” achievement
• The “Haec Ornamenta Mea” achievements now also considers ornaments from cosmetic packs
• Fixed the missing icons in the quest book and quest tracker for the “Falling Obsidian” tutorial quest

Localization & Text

• Fixed various smaller typos and other spelling mistakes across all languages
• Fixed several missing translations in various languages
• Aurochs are called Aurochs again
• Fixed some voice line issues for various languages
  • g. the Equites using Plebeian voice lines during disasters in the French localization
• Fixed an issue that led to messages from residents not making use of the full pool of possible messages
• Fixed duplicate mentioning of specialist during the “Gemini in the Rough” decision